I will be dropping my shared-hosting plan and ordering a small VPS as soon as I can decide on which operating sytem to use. It seems that most companies offer the following choices: Suse, Debian, Fedora and CentOS.

I freely admit that I am a full-fledged n00b when it comes to linux and will be learning as I go, the problem is I just don't know where to start because I'm not familiar with any of them. I have at least heard of Suse, Debian and Fedora before, but didn't even know this CentOS existed until yesterday... and yet, it seems to be one of the more popular choices.

So I was wondering if some of you seasoned VPS veterans here could recommend an OS, tell me what the differences are, or otherwise share any experience you might have with any of them.

I'm not a Debian user, so I want some advice how to install Debian 4 as guest OS on top of Centos 5.2 dom0.

Mostly on Google, there's a manual on Centos on top of Debian. I've tried to use the netinstall iso for debian and mount it on /var/www/html/debian and use it for remote install source. So far don't have any success on that.

I am attempting to migrate from a debian os server with the latest plesk 12 to Centos (rather cloudlinux) and would like to know if there are any options that should not be checked during the process?

I recently tried to do the normal procedure, which is to transfer all objects, etc. And for some reason the percentage went from 1-50% to then back to zero.. but when clicking to check the current status, its still working

For some reason I am having issues with latest Plesk with php and wordpress. HTML sites are fine, but all php and wordpress sites are giving a 502 error after fully migrating. I repaired with Webserver Configurations Troubleshooter and rebooted and its still giving me the same issue.Also, noticed my previous server had php 5.4.36, the new CentOS server has 5.4.37.

i'm running a forum and a few other things on a futurehosting VPS plan which is running centos.

we changed to futurehosting because our shared hosting was definately not coping with it, so we had to make a quick changeover... unfortunately i dont have too much experience with setting up mailservers in linux(which seems to be a massive complicated mess involving a million different services).

i'm wondering if anyone knows any guides to setting up a mail server + have a managable web interface to add user accounts/setup forwarding rules and such that works well with centos?

tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archiveTry `tar --help' or `tar --usage' for more information.

The folder is called opensim. I was logged into SSH with root access and tried the command directly, not going into other folders because well I dont want to, I wanna backup that 1st opensim folder that I can see on the FTP also.

I'm having some trouble finding a VPS host that offers Debian and Plesk. I've searched the forum but nothing's really panned out. I'm currently with Geekstorage but the server has been slow (same problem reported by others).

NX server needs ssh and some libraries to run. These packages are normally not installed during the basic installation process.Use the following comamnd to install

#aptitude libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 ssh

Install Free NX Server in Debian Etch

First you need to download the .deb packages using the follwoing commandsi did the three steps..

Now you need to install .deb packages in the following order this is very important

#dpkg -i nxclient_2.1.0-17_i386.deb

#dpkg -i nxnode_2.1.0-22_i386.deb

#dpkg -i nxserver_2.1.0-22_i386.deb

If you get any errors use the following comamnd to fix

#apt-get -f install

Now you need to make sure ssh and nx servers are running if not start with the following commands

#/etc/init.d/ssh start

#/etc/init.d/nxserver start--------------------but the problem is i cannot connect to the nx .i installed the program on windows but what is the username and password should i use? i tried to use the root but it said that the user root cannot be used.

I have a lot of questions here so if you can't answer them all I understand. even pointing me somewhere where I could get the answers would be appreciated; hardware sites focusing on server hardware, forums focusing on such, etc.

- file server (lots of files around ~2-10MB, consistant 70mbps right now, but we want more room for upgrades. needs a LOT of storage room.)

- web server (lots of php files, but also static things like plain html, images, etc. also includes all misc services for the setup-- dns, etc.)

could I be given a rundown for which hardware each of the three should have? I don't need specifics, even just knowing that more ram is important here while cpu doesn't matter as much, or that the fastest disks available are a must, etc would all be valuable info for me. despite that, I certainly wouldn't mind specific hypothetical hardware configs.

for the database server I'm assuming the more ram the better. not entirely sure about the cpu? also not positive on disks...

for the fileserver, how much ram would be practical or useful? disk io will be an issue I'm because plenty of people will be pulling files at once so the disk needs to read from multiple places. scsi (and even raptors) are not an option as we need 750GB+ of space on a reasonable budget. more ram will take some load of of the disks, but how much is neccessary / reasonable?

for the web server I'm assuming cpu first, then ram, but it'll likely need less ram than the db server?

I'm more lost on the disks than anything. scsi on the fileserver is not an option under any circumstances due to $/GB. for the db & web server I'm willing to pay for scsi if the performance increase really does warrant the extra money, but I'd like to be convinced before shelling it out. if you have benchmarks geared at server hardware when it comes to disks I'd really appreciate it.

also, what's the best way to network these together when colocated? each one with a dual gigabit ethernet port and then the communications go to and from the router?

From some weeks I try to have a secure install for my Debian. THis server will be a shared hosting host so need special security but I don't know how to do this.

My requirement are :

- Apache

- PHP (mod, not cgi)

Actually, users can navigate into my server by using phpshell script. And someone put lots of file into /tmp directory so I tri to secure all of that but don't find good tuto for that; do you know where can i have some?

And what about php using cron so execute with php-cli how to secure it?

I've just ordered a dedicated server with Ubuntu server, but they've come back to me to say that they've had trouble installing Ubuntu server on these particular servers.

As an alternative, they're offering to install Debian. My concern is that I come from a windows background and have spent the last month reading and playing with Ubuntu Server in vmware. I'll be running a small handful of sites on the server and will rely on the apt-get and package installer in webmin to get things set up and for administration. I'll dabble in the shell a little, but only when needed.

Should I go with a different host that can offer Ubuntu, or will I be okay with Debian?

I am on a vps server and want to install a GUI based control panel. ISPconfig being the most talked about however i am unable to find a tutorial which helps you with step by step installation on debian 4;